


Serendipity in Neverland

by MagiLiv



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Adventure, Drama & Romance, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 18:10:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4886689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagiLiv/pseuds/MagiLiv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neverland: a wondrous place with an eminent elusive beauty, myths and legends brought to life, and danger alluded with secrets. None of the inhabitants know how the girl managed to appear. No one really knows who she is, except Natsu.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She woke in a float.

Long and narrow, slim only to fit the thin figure still sprawled over its body. The bow was crooked and dent with signs of decaying war and storm. The seats dismembered and peeling, its walls just the same. Beneath them, shielded—if just barely—from the high sun, was a girl. Hardly half the size of a single wooden paddle of the boat, scarcely as thick as the trunk of a river oak tree. With a head tangled in honey butter waves, eyelids hiding bark colored irises, skin fair in the shadows. Sound asleep.

* * *

He woke in a tree.

Or for a better fit, beneath the earth. On a woven hammock made out of decaying straw. The pungent smell was growing and grating its way through the bark of the trees hallow insides. His hand, filthy and caked with mud, was thrown across his face. The mid-drift of his bare stomach peeked out to the morning chill. At the foot of the straw hammock was the rarest of creatures he'd come across ways back. A blue cat, his whiskers small and fair, his nose pink and smudged on his blue face. Cradled on the hammock, the boy. Blushed spikes of hair plastered against an oval face, black lashes on peach skin. Dreaming.

* * *

"Sleeping so carelessly, are you so dense?" The pestering squeak was in her ear, she swatted and curled to her right. "Don't you dare—" another swat, "Why I'll—"

Something poked on her side, a pinch no greater than the ferocious sting of a bee. Not enough to get her to stir awake at least.

It was minutes before the small voice came again, this time it rang in her head so loud she couldn't escape it anymore.

"You're getting closer. It'll be too late to leave if you don't go now."

The blonde waves that were splashed across her face fell as she sat upright. The sun's kisses a new sensation on her skin, and blinding to her baby eyes. She blinked until the view came into focus: an island.

A grandeur one at that, too.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The story goes that the island was formed to the strings of violins. It wasn't a musical island, but it was simply created with a melody. It began sad, slow and long. The notes pulling each other and ending together. Then, as slowly as it began, it melted into a staccato river. Soon enough, this dreary and rather melancholy tune was bouncing its foot, whistling a jingle of pure bliss until finally, the island was born.

She stared at it now in amazement, her pink lips gaped just the slightest until a fluttering in her ear told her to watch for the bugs. "Neverland," she whispered. Never in a million years did she dream of finding it. And even now, as she stepped out of her makeshift boat and jumped onto the golden sand, did she have the smallest inkling of how she even managed to do it.

But she'd gotten there, and that was all that mattered right then. The sheer excitement of breathing warm alien air was such an exhilarating feat, she barely paid mind to the incessant ringing in her ear. She swatted but it only grew angrier until she turned her head. A little cat.

A pixie!

"If you swat at me one more time, I swear I might just have the mind of leaving you to bear through this alone! Do I make myself clear, girl?"

The little one bobbed the blonde waves on her head. "You don't speak much, do you?" The pixie scrunched her nose. "Better for me, I could use a means of transportation. Quick, we have to get off the shore before the Others see us!" She was pulling at the ribbon on the girls frilled gown.

While her feet bid to the silent tug, her eyes wondered above her to the floating ship in the sky.

* * *

He, on the other hand, was floating in an endless dream of flight. Gravity was a born discovery bound to be found eventually. A chain for the mundane, he wasn't having it. But flight, flight was an invention. A creation for the dreamers, the believers, and the innocent with opened eyes.

And there he was, not physically of course, but nonetheless with the presence of a thousand men, he was flying. Drifting and weaving through the trees, willing his body to push higher—new extremes waiting to be discovered. And the cat was there of course, together they were going higher, higher, and higher. The gleam of the sun hurting so much they looked at each other and laughed. How beautiful is it to live so freely? All until—

He woke up.

* * *

The tale follows a gold child who washed ashore one day on this island. None of the creatures, none of the inhabitants—no one had any form of knowledge to how this alien child appeared. Rumors went to say the Others had sent her as means to lure the forest boy out. Whispers said she was a gift from the gods to do well to the island and those in it. There was even scampering gossip the girl was sent to abolish the order they'd created, a failed experiment by the Others sent to wreck mayhem. Nonetheless, the bad outweighed the good. And seeing the norm of things, people talked when they were afraid of what they did not know.

"Do you have a name?" the pixie asked from the girl's shoulder. The little one merely shook her head and pricked at a berry on her lap.

They'd been sitting beneath a huckleberry tree waiting for the sun to finish its arc before continuing their tread. "You don't have a name?" she asked again. "How can you possibly not have a name? That's the first thing people do around these parts!"

The girl shrugged again and fingered the skin of the blueberry before raising it to her lips. "How absurd," she sighed. "Well, I guess I'll be the one to give you a name then." The winged cat stretched her wings out before bouncing off and flying in front of the girl's face. She scrutinized her from the arch of her brows, to the owlish curve of her eyes, the pout of her stained blue lips, to the very tip of her pointed ears. "You're not far from a fairy or a doll are you?" she whispered to herself. The pixie hopped from one foot to another until a light-bulb lit above her head, "that's right! We'll call you Blue."

Unimpressed by the name the girl tilted her head and scrunched her features. "What? Don't tell me you don't like it. I put a lot of thought into it you know!" The girl shook her head in disagreement. "Fine, I'll take you to him. I'm sure he'll know what to name you—he's good at that you know. He's given all of us our name. No one knows really why he's so grand at it, but we've never really bothered to question it either."

* * *

"H-hey." Grumbling, he rolled over to his right side. Still, the voice came again. "Hey, listen to me!" It was warm and sweet like the juice from a honeysuckle, but very annoying right then. He waved his hand behind him for it to silence itself. "That's rude, even ruder that you'll be in bed when the guest arrives."

"Guest?" he sat up with his hair sticking up in awkward places and the trace of dried drool on his chin. "I don't remember inviting anyone."

The little blue haired fairy patted down the strands of pink hair. "Well, me either but she's on her way right now!" He reached for his head and grabbed the girl by the nape of her green dress, bringing her to his face. "If you didn't invite her and I didn't invite her, who invited her?"

Her arms fell limp in front of her as she let a sigh of defeat out. "I don't know!" she tried wiggling from his grip, "but you can't possibly greet a guest looking the way you do."

He let her go and poked at the cat at the foot of the hammock. "Happy, we have company."

The blue cat waved his tail at the incessant foot and continued to snore blissfully. "Is she here to play?" he asked from his drawer as he looked for something clean. "A new friend?" One of the shirts landed atop of the sleeping cat. The blue haired fairy was trying endlessly to catch the garments he threw from landing on the dirty floorboards of the tree-house. "I don't know honestly, but she is a girl."

"A princess?"

"Possibly."

"Then we'll welcome her with a feast!" he shouted snatching a green collared shirt from the air.

"There's no time!" the clothes were weighing down heavily on her petite frame. "With our luck they're probably already—"

"Hello? Is anyone down there?" echoed a voice from above. "We're coming down!"

"—here," her arms gave out and before she could stop it, she had fallen onto the ground in a heap of dirty laundry.

"Quickly, Wendy, we have to hide before they— Wendy? Hey, that's not fair! You got a head start." He'd been frantically looking for a place to hide. From the shady lamp stand, to the barrel against wall, to even the patch of mushrooms in the corner of the living room. But time was not on his side and when he turned to face the visitor who was coming down the steps of his home, he'd been standing there with his hands bare and drooped to his sides. And with a single breath, no louder than the thump of a beating heart, he whispered a name he'd never imagined to free in this air.

"Lucy."

 


	3. Chapter 3

The strangest thing occurs the first second of your existence: your name. Exactly what is in a name? It's given, often by your caregivers, and then follows you incessantly throughout the meager years you hold on earth. There's no question of it, you don't even exactly have a necessary say in it either. Essentially, the name is given, and it's followed.

Now, the girl was no bigger than a boat paddle and no wider than the trunk of the thinnest huckleberry tree. Even ignoring the small features of her face and stature, she couldn't have been much older than ten. Still, given this, the way the boy had said the name gave a melodic ring to it. Not just to it, but to her. She harmonized with this name, the way he spoke it and pushed his tongue to emphasize the vowel. Even now, as he watched her with careful and calculating eyes, it meant something to him so much it almost meant something to her.

"Lucy?" he asked this time, doubt creeping at the edge of his voice.

"See! I said he would come up with a name in no time. Now, where's Wendy? Wen—" The white cat was off the girl's shoulder and zooming in and out of cupboards in search for her friend.

"Lucy…" his voice cracking, he broke the distance between them with five long strides. No hesitation, there was no second thought or regret when he pulled her to him. All of her, he held all of her. Burying his stricken face in her shoulder, taking in the smell of wood and ocean spray—the smell of the island, his island—all of it. Taking her in as she was right then. And, oh, how she was different then.

"—dy…" A hush fell over all of them with only the sound of a ticking clock keeping the pace of time. But the problem wasn't the silence. It wasn't the fact that for that moment all they could hear was each other's slow intake of air or how between the two of them all they could feel was the beating thing against their shirts wanting to be freed. The problem wasn't them, it wasn't the silence, it wasn't the confused questions raising from Wendy or the white cat or even from the girl. The problem was that the rush of emotion was coming from one person and that person was him. And only him.

It was completely and inescapably unrequited.

He drew away from her before anyone could say anything else. Tightening his scarf around his neck, he exited the same way they'd enter. His footsteps lingered throughout the walls before the white cat spoke again. "That was far from the reaction I'd expected—Wendy, where are you?"

"I'm over here, Carla!" the blue haired girl poked a pale arm from underneath the sleeve of a red shirt. "Under here!"

"Oh, goodness. How did you manage to get tangled in this mess—no, don't move you're only making it worst."

From where the girl stood, the voices became but white noise to her ears as she watched the stairs that lead to the outside. Waiting, she was waiting. Until the sound of rattling wood came back and the same steps she'd remembered leaving were tumbling back down toward the dim living room.

But this time Natsu only met her eyes for a brief moment, glancing once and cocking the faintest hint of a smile before making his way towards his hammock again.

Pushing a mussed strand of hair out of her eyes, she watched him wake the blue cat at the foot of it. Realizing that he wasn't going to look back up at her, the sensation of a long forgotten need pinched her. She hopped from one foot to the other before she began to pace the perimeter of the tree-house. There were four rooms: two bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen. But nowhere was there a bathroom. She poked her head through every nook and every cranny but she found nothing in the form of a washroom—or at least nothing sanitary she could use. There was a wooden bucket with some metal straps at its side, but it definitely did not draw her in.

And the boy, he sat there with the sleeping cat on his lap, watching her as she skipped bare foot across his accommodations. The blue haired fairy grunted something as Carla helped push the thick piles of clothes off her miniature body, "N-Natsu-san, I think she has to go."

"But she just got here."

"N-No," kicking off a mud caked sock off her leg, she flew up to his ear and pushed a thread of pink hair out of the way. "I think she has to go," she whispered. His eyes nearly bulged out of his skull. Not missing a beat, he picked the bucket up by the handles along with a small shovel and raised it to the girl. She blinked, once and then twice before he realized it.

"Oh, that's fine. I can go with you if you want!"

Wendy slapped her forehead, the print of her small hand glowing behind. "You can't go with her!"

"Why not?" he asked. "She'll get lost if she goes alone."

"Oh, for the sake of all that's good. Come with me I'll take you," the white cat flew over from the dirty pile of clothes and pulled the ends of the girl's hair towards the door. "But, Carla!" Wendy cried.

"Well you come too, Wendy!"

Natsu let the bucket drop from his hand and fell against the floorboards beside the snoozing blue cat. Without the girls, the house was silent. Between him and the paced breaths of the winged animal, all that moved through the rooms was a silent breeze carrying the muffled noise from the three above. It bounced from between the corridor leading to the living room. It stretched and contracted before it hit the floorboards and scattered across the house. Hitting anything tangible: the couch, the island in the center of the kitchen, the drawers, and his ears. Part of him craved to know what they laughed about above, was she laughing? He stroked the blue coat on the cat's back, closing his eyes he laid his head against the hammock. "I think she's back," he said to no one.


	4. Chapter 4

How would you describe color to the blind? It certainly isn't an impossible feat for the creative. Whether it is blue, yellow, red—black and white—imagination knows no boundaries. Blue: an ocean. The feeling of snow on the tip of your fingers, kissing the bridge of your nose. Your hand gliding against the current of a slow river. Cool, serene, blue. Yellow: a sun. It's warmth. It's inexplicable and comforting warmth. A vibrancy of color even with closed eyes. Warm, blissful, yellow. Red: a sunset. The rise of a feeling and then the crash—the anger, the frustration of it all. It's lust. It's love. It's blood and it's gore. A color driven by emotion and ridded by hate or love and passion. Burning, contrasting, red.

Black and white. Two opposing figures—an absence of it all and every presence at once. Nothing and something. Darkness, loneliness, black. Lightness, awareness, white.

The girl was conscious of the colors in more ways than sight. Sitting against the sleek lily pad, her feet splashing ripples into the pond—describing any of this would have been the easiest of things. But as she breathed in the crisp and morning air of the island, her mind drew a complete blank.

Neverland was a magnificent island. It was nothing you could have ever imagined. Seeing it was truly believing. In what? Well, that was for everyone else to decide on their own. There was no denying it though, Neverland was its own criteria of elusive beauty.

And she made it her mission to explore every last inch of it.

It was still relatively early when she woke to the sound of pecking against the tree's exterior, there was no going back to sleep. But now that she thought about it, she didn't really remember going to sleep in the first place. There was no dream and even when she was "waking up" there was no sense that she'd been gone. Nonetheless, the pecking was something that kept her from remaining put on the couch in the living room so she quietly tip-toed out and wondered around until she found this pond.

But she didn't just find it. The girl had been walking a straight path from the tree's entrance when a little white figure pushed its head out from underneath a shrub. Her first instinct was to jump behind the trunk of a tree and peer at it from the safe distance. It was short and white with a cone for a nose. Really, it was rather harmless and actually very cute. The little thing shook its head and cried out, "Puun!" stringing a small laugh from the little girl behind the tree.

Catching her amusement, he tried it again and again until finally she was making her way towards him. Carefully, she scooped him from the wet dirt he'd been engulfed in and dusted him off. "Such a squishy thing," she thought. The girl squeezed his cheeks and tugged at the white patch on his stomach until the little thing swatted at her hands and jumped from her grip.

He was the one to lead her to the pond. And when she took the first step beneath the twine of leaves that hanged from above, her heart nearly jolted.

It was beautiful.

As she pushed away the weeping willow's hair, it all came into focus. She had walked into a painting. Beneath the shallow body of water she could make the moving figures as tadpoles. Behind her the ancient willow looked over the pond and its thread of leaves hanged over them like a cascading barrier, enclosing them and protecting them. Somewhere between the gaps, the sunrise peeked through and stabbed a mesh of reds and violets against the water. Glowing puffs of light kissed the surface of the pond and hovered aimlessly in the air. Lily pads and iridescent lotus flowers drifted and followed the ripples as she stepped into the water. Cattails were huddled in the center, creating a makeshift forest. But that wasn't what had peeked her interest nor was it the reason she'd quickly jumped into the pond. It was what was peeking out from behind.

Nymphs.

Of all colors—bright hues of blues, tones of yellows and reds. Orange, pink, purple, white—a village of them hidden amongst the cattails. And they were calling to her, waving their little luminescent hands for her to come closer. She obeyed their calls and moved against the water and perched herself atop a large lily pad with hanging bell flowers above her head. She was completely encaptivated.

Balanced there on the floating pad, surrounded by the wildlife of plants behind her and the beauty of the glowing nymphs beside her, she'd never remembered being at such ease—not that she remembered anything other than what was occurring right then, but still. There couldn't have been anymore simplicity than this.

And oh, how she was wrong.

From the base of the willow's trunk, the little white creature was hopping from one foot to the other, flaying his arms above his head and pointing at the girl. She only laughed in response and dipped low to splash water towards him. It wasn't until the nymphs, who had been playing with the gold strands of her hair, bolted up and furrowed deep within the cattails again that she realized the ambiance of the air had shifted.

She was no longer alone.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Most mornings started like this: Wendy and Carla would wake first and go out to gather the little things—berries, herbs, and maybe on a good day they'd run into an untouched grove of fruits. Natsu and Happy followed in the opposite direction for that day and restocked the basic needs of their little home: wood for the stove and fireplace, water from the streams, and if by chance they'd stumble across an unfortunate animal they'd fortunately have something grandeur to eat that day.

But, seeing the stem of things lately, this was not an average morning. And, following the previous circumstances, an altered morning was a given.

Wendy was the first to notice the missing presence of the girl. She'd eagerly woken up and dressed herself in a cream lilac tunic and dashed out of her room, crossed Natsu's bedroom with not so much as a beat of her wings, and dipped into the living room in search for their guest.

What awaited her was nothing more than an empty pile of sheets and drooped pillows. "What's this?" she asked in a whisper. Lifting the raggedy blanket, she poked her head through but when she looked to her right and then to her left, there was no sight of the girl. She flew through the living room and then into the kitchen but the girl was nowhere in the vicinity of the house.

"Carla—wake up," she poked when she was back in their room. "I think the girl has gone missing." Too early to be bothered, the white cat shooed her friend and rolled over on her bed. Scrunching her brows forward she pushed, "I'm serious I think she's not in the house!"

"Maybe she had to go out, Wendy."

"No, Carla—I'm going to look for her."

"Do be careful," she said against her pillow. "I'll be here."

But Wendy was already zooming up the little tunnel in their room and flying out of the tree's spout, not catching her words. "She couldn't have gone too far," she told herself.

Neverland was a wondrous place to wake to in the early morning. With the fairies still out and the glittering lights still bounding from any tangible thing, it was a sight to take in indeed. It was no place to wander if you weren't already aware though. Neverland was a haven for beauty but it still lingered with danger.

Braking left and forcing her way through a spider-web was when she came across Plue. Unbeknownst to her, he'd already encountered the girl and was running frantically back to the tree-house. "Plue!" she cried from above. She peeled the last of the spider-web's remains off her shoulder and dipped an arch towards the running thing. "Plue, wait!"

He was trembling more than normal Wendy realized when she sat on his frail shoulder. "I'm looking for a girl," she said. Plue jolted so hard she nearly fell forward. "What's wrong, Plue? It's like you've seen a ghoul. I don't think she could have gone far. Her hair was yellow and she wasn't taller than Na—"

"Puun! Pun pun puuun puun!" he cried, his shoulders shaking feverishly.

Finally catching her breath, Wendy flew in front of Plue's face. "You saw her?"

He nodded and then stepped back. Grabbing a leaf from a bush and setting it on the ground before plopping down on it, he began to reenact the scene he'd witnessed before. Kicking his feet in the air, twirling his hair he played the role of a girl. Then he jumped to his left and started flailing his arms, frantically calling to his former self. Then back to the inconceivable leaf, he was splashing the air to his left. And then behind himself, he was creeping up to the leaf, snatching it away and running.

The color from Wendy's face dropped, "We've got to tell Natsu."

On an average day, there routine wouldn't start until the sun was high enough to alert late morning. Seeing as the sun was still just hues of reds and pinks, Natsu and his blue partner were still sound asleep. Dreaming, as they always did—Natsu mostly—about some random adventure in another world. Contrary to his usual dreams of flight, Natsu dreamt of a world enclosed with four walls. Nothing but a blue cloudless sky stood above and four concrete escapable walls around.

A true nightmare.

So when Wendy came bursting in, her chest heaving with the heavy breaths she barely managed to take, it was almost a blessing rather than a curse. "Natsu," she breathed. Something white and stringy glimmered in her hair and the blue cat moved to pull it out. "The girl—she's gone."

He jerked off the hammock and Happy plunged merciless down headfirst. "Where?"

Wendy was hovering beside him as he maneuvered his scarf and sandals on simultaneously. "Plue said she was taken."

"Plue?" twitching his head to the lone witness, Plue itched from behind the door and performed his reenactment again before Natsu stopped him. "No, I want to know what they looked like."

Plue frantically looked around the room as Carla flew in, "What is with all the commotion?"

"Shh!" Wendy and Natsu silenced her together.

The white animal dived for a black shirt and put it over his head, heaved enough air into his lungs that his chest rose, and then pounded his hands together. Still, other than the fact that the person had black hair, they were at a lost.

"We're wasting time, we have to go look for her now." Natsu was kicking cans and limp shirts out of the way as he barged into the living room. "Lucy's out there and we're playing charades."

"Lucy?" Carla asked. "So that is her name?"

"Carla, there's no time," Wendy pleaded.

"I know!" Happy cried from the floor. "Why can't Carla just see where she is?"

Frowning, the white cat shook her head. "I'm afraid my powers don't work that way, tomcat."

"I'm going," Natsu said.

"But we don't know where to go!" Carla said.

"I don't care," Natsu said. It was silent for just that moment. Plue looked from Wendy, to Carla, to Happy, ending at Natsu. Still trembling, he tugged at his pants and pointed at the kitchen. "If it were any of you I wouldn't have wasted so much time to go after you guys," his voice faltered but he caught himself again. "Only because you don't know her—" he stopped himself and moved away from Plue's incessant tugging. He tried again, "Only because she's new doesn't mean we shouldn't care. She's our friend now."

Being the only one willing to hear, Wendy followed Plue into the kitchen where he perched himself besides the steel sink. He was jumping now and pointing at it while rubbing his arms in a shiver until everyone turned to him. "Water?" Wendy asked. "The man specialized water?"

He shook his head and desperately pointed at the color of the sink.

That was all Natsu needed to see before sprinting up the stairs and out the door, Happy following his lead.

"N-Natsu!" Wendy cried. "Wait!" spreading her wings for flight, she raced after Happy's tail. "Where are we going?" she shouted as she climbed the cat's tail. But Natsu's mind was miles away, or more specifically, they were at the tallest mountain of Neverland.

The very peak of it actually.

Where the snow blew any passerby.

Where the ice threatened the lives those not native to it.

Where Gray was.

 


	6. Chapter 6

Neverland was a misshaped island that vaguely—extremely vaguely—resembled a turtle. Those native to the island knew of the sectioned areas, Lucy did not. When her boat hit sand and the scorching heat seeped through her skin, she barely gave note to the temperature change as she made her way deeper into the island’s grips. As Carla maneuvered her through the eccentric plants that rose from Neverland’s earth, she barely noticed that for a prodigious forest the air was rather cool and dry. To her defense, the difference wasn’t grand but as she sat in this carriage, an animal skinned coat over her shoulders and fur boots warming her feet, she was starting to think maybe the climate in Neverland varied each area.

Which was precisely another thing she would explore in due time.

Mountains were no rare sight in Neverland either, they were scattered all over the island. Even at the beach she’d washed ashore on, a cove of mountains huddled at her sides. These mountains gave face to the island—from the purple rocked highlands of her beach to these extraordinary Alps home to blizzards and snow—they gave a very distinct aspect to Neverland. She’d been observant, though. When he’d taken her from the pond, the girl had watched their trail with perceptive eyes. From the bumpy tread on rocks, to the random jolt the carriage gave when they’d reach elevated land, to the very incline to where the snow began to kiss the grassy earth—her eyes had taken it all.

But the strangest of things was she wasn’t afraid.

There was no anxiety driven to her bones, no inclination of fight or flight, she was not scared of this boy or what he wanted with her. Of course, she’d screamed and kicked when he’d taken her—it had really been rude to do that in the first place—but when he held her arms and watched her with those eyes, she had calm. He told her, “I won’t hurt you.” And she believed him completely. Which was very strange to her. Why did she trust him? Why did she feel that this boy had some familiarity to her?

And it wasn’t only him, it was the pinked hair one back at the tree, too. In fact, it was all of them. The white cat, the blue girl, the sleeping tomcat—the boy. All of them. They had some vague memory attached to each from her that she couldn’t bring forth to the front of her mind.

Actually, she couldn’t bring any sense of recognition anywhere to her mind and it was driving her completely mad.

“You’re going too far,” he said to her. She drew from the window and looked at him, he was sitting across from her. Contrary to her garments, the black haired boy was dressed simply in a white top coat and black trousers. “My name’s Gray, by the way.”

She turned back to the window and he nearly fell out of his seat. “Dismissed already?” Composing himself once again, he cleared his throat. “I’m only kidding. What’s your name?”

The girl did not answer but only pinched the soft fabric inside the sleeve of her coat. He tried again, “Do you have a name?”

She shook her head. “Can you speak? Do you understand me?”

This time she turned and nodded. Yes, she did understand him. But although she had tried since she’d gotten to the island, she could not manage a single syllable through her lips. The girl was mute.

The car shook just the slightest and the boy sat back against his seat with his arms folded over his chest. “Has he—um, has he,” he cleared his throat. “Has Natsu given you a name?”

Natsu. He had her attention again, but once more she shook her head. The boy had given her a name though, Lucy. And it was such a pretty name to her too, she liked it. She felt it fit, well, at least it resonated with her. Without thinking the girl frantically reached for the boys hands and bid for his attention again. “What is it?” he asked. Her eyes fell down to their hands and she quickly jumped back, how would she tell him the name?

Fogging a patch of the window with her lips, she guided her gloved finger to spell out the four letters: L u c y.

“Lucy?” this time he stared at her with the same confused eyes as the pink haired boy did. “Lucy…” he said again. The girl looked down at her lap and shifted against the velvet seats. His eyes were still fixated on her until he felt her discomfort and brushed his thoughts away. “Well, I’ve never heard a name like that before,” he lied.

The storm was growing angrier as the carriage rose higher and higher on the side of the mountain. With her nose pressed against the glass, all she could see was the blazing wind dancing with the settled snow on the ground.

And what a sight it was.

It whistled and creaked against the carriage as the wind begged for a dance. The light above rattled and she sat back, her features mix with wonder and nerves. “We’ll be alright,” Gray reassured her. “You see,” he took his hands, placing his right fist over his left palm. “I play with ice. I’m the one moving this carriage up.” Lucy’s eyes grew wide as blue fragments of ice dribbled through the bottom of his fist, but the magic did not end there. When he opened the ball there was a rose. A crystal rose. The details so elaborate and clear. He placed it on her hand, “There’s many things you don’t know about Neverland,” he whispered. “It’s more than just an island filled with secrets,” he said. “It’s living magic.”

She removed the wool mitten off her right hand to further touch the rose. She traced its petals, the way they folded beneath each other until the center completely hugged the petals inward. Her finger slid down to the single leaf and followed the thorns all the way down to the tip of its stem. Magic, she thought.

“You realize they’ll be coming after you,” he said watching her. “And the reason I took you was to lure him out. Natsu.”

And as his lips freed that single name, the carriage came to a stop.


	7. Chapter 7

Just on the rise of an incline, the carriage halted to an abrupt stop.

And then it started to fall.

Instinctively she reached for the handle of the door before Gray put his hand over hers, pulling her close to his body before turning it and pushing against the sealed door. Her foot nearly caught at the base of the magic carriage, Gray pushed her with a single hand until she fell into the white powder of the snow.

It wasn't until she impacted with the cold that she realized Gray hadn't pushed her. Her body fell effortlessly against the elevated snow, the wind pushing and shoving her further—deeper. The girl raised her head against the wind, pushed the strands of hair out of her eyes, but what was between her and the stretch of miles of snow, she saw nothing. Nothing at all.

Nothing but frost puffs of air.

Willing her legs to move, she steadied a knee and then slowly rose to her feet before another burst of wind kicked her back down. How she wanted to cry, how much she wanted to scream for help but the words simply wouldn't ascend to her tongue. And it was cold.

It was so cold.

It vibrated against her bones. The cold dug through the fabric of her coat, seeped through the wool of her mittens, drenched the tips of her fingers with cold kisses before slithering further down her hands. It was completely unbearable. Her mind was a thousand thoughts muted against the freezing storm. She couldn't hear anything—nothing but the screaming of the wind. How was it possible to think so many things and to feel so many things but have it voided all at once? There was a voice shouting inside her head but it was so muffled she could barely make a word. A howl of teasing tucked another blanket of snow over her, slapping her face with another blush of frostbitten cheeks.

But oh, how comforting the cold was becoming.

The stabbing of knives against her sides, the ones that were burrowing beneath the soles of her shoes and shredding the sides of her legs were slowly subduing into nothing. The daggers that—was it that long ago?— had been groping the side of her head, forcing shockwaves into her mind, rampaging and storming until she squinted her eyes and begged for the pain to stop, that too was disappearing. Not completely, of course. Nothing could disappear forever. But nothing but the strokes of cool pinpricks remained, kissing her body in such a soothing way.

Right then she couldn't think of anything but this strange cool warmth that enveloped her. The voice was just a whisper now, lulling her to a sleep she was willing to welcome. Between her arms, her torso, and her legs, she couldn't feel a thing. She was floating in a never-ending space of snow and heat.

So numb.

And so tired.

Her eyelashes beating against more intricate flakes of snow, she let them fall over the brown irises of her eyes.

Sleep, yes, that sounded lovely.

"A sleep so long," the voice whispered. "You'd forget everything."

There was a light as she closed her eyes. A jolting white so brilliant and so fine, it washed over her like a second coat of skin. It beckoned, even quieter than the voice in her ear, to come forward. As if it had been long awaiting, tendrils of this pure light tugged at the ends of her coat sleeves.

"Go," the voice was there again. "Be free."

The girl was a feather who patiently waited for the next waltz of wind to ask for another dance. But as her mind drifted away to this light and her pulse waited for this last moment for her hand to be taken, there came another voice and one who was not beside her.

It was far and rather frantic, too.

But the light was so much closer now, just one more dance—one more spin and she'd be in the arms of this calm peace. Go away, she wanted to say to those voices. Leave me be.

Yet, the voices only grew louder and closer. It rose with different pitches, all so desperate and worried.

But one stood out, one who said the name in such a way it drew her.

"Lucy!" it cried.

"Natsu," she whispered.

Yes, her voice.

_Natsu._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I just thought that since it's the seventh chapter I'd give a little note about the story. I know things are being paced a bit slowly (sorry!) but things will begin to "pick up" and the plot and the questions you may be having will slowly begin to unravel with the next few chapters! Anyways, thank you for reading and I hope you're enjoying it!


	8. Chapter 8

For a moment she felt as if she were floating. Aloft somewhere between a cloud and wedged between light and dark. Half her body was skimming waves of translucency and the other—well, the other really nowhere yet everywhere at once.

Falling deeper, deeper, and deeper. Her body being pulled, unnoticeably to her, towards the cool tingles of this warmth shriveling through every cell of her body. And the voice again, not any that she had heard yet on the island. A voice so familiar but completely alien to her ears.

"Keep fighting," it told her. Or maybe it was a whisper? She could barely tell, but it reverberated off the walls in her head. "Don't let go."

And with a drawing shiver, it whispered, _"Come back."_

Lucy woke with a start. Her chest contracted with every breath she took and her bones trembled against the thick coat of blankets upon her. The frozen strands of hair clung to her cheeks, her forehead, and the nape of her neck. Would the blankets not have been wrapped around her so tight, she would have sat up.

But there she was, wrapped in a cocoon of coats, blankets, hats, and scarfs. She shifted her head against metal as she worked to blink the ice out of her eyes. Were her eyes opened? She did not know, it was so dark. Where was she? Why couldn’t she see? And why was there a—

"Lucy?" the voice was surprised. "Wendy, I think she's waking up!" There was some commotion of feet stumbling and heavy steps growing closer to where she lay. "No don't unwrap her!" another voice said urgently. "She still needs to get her body temperature back."

"At least let me get this off her," and there it was. The radiant glow of light. Stinging and burning her eyes as she squinted against this old discovery. Yet the light painted a different pigment to her eyes unlike the other. This one wasn't dim like the cove beneath the treehouse and this one wasn't pure and bleached like the one she'd been floating in just moments before. This one was blue and rather cold.

Carla, who had been the one to remove the metal thing from her head—it was a pot?—helped Wendy sit her up so her back could be facing the fire place. But there was something different about them the girl couldn't quite put her finger on just yet… The cat was still white, a blueberry colored jacket over her body and pink mittens with jeweled buttons etched on the side. The girl was still a girl, her blue hair tucked beneath a green cap with a white coat over her slim figure and leather strapped winter boots shielding her feet. So what was it? They must have noticed her confused expression and figured the answer before the question developed in her mind.

"Oh, I'm sorry. We just like being in our smaller figures, it's a lot more convenient," Wendy rubbed the back of her head. So that's what it was, they were no longer the size of her index finger.

"Why did we even agree to let Natsu put the pot on her head, honestly," the white cat complained as she rolled the steel thing in her hands.

Wendy laughed and offered to take it from her, "He said it would help keep the heat around her head. It was in good thought, Carla."

Lucy’s eyes averted from the two and scanned their surroundings. They were in a room, that much she knew. The walls seemed to have been made out of glass with these intricate details lapped against each other running along the corners. The ceiling held a premature chandelier that dangled the blue flickers of light she'd first seen. Beneath her, the floors were also the same crystal as the walls and the fire place. Which was bizarre to her, it almost all seemed like ice. Everything but a single door that still stood wooden as opposed to its surroundings.

At the opposite end from which they were huddled was a wardrobe, maybe three times her size with an outstanding silver mirror beside it where she could scarcely make her figure in it. Across that was a navy covered bed with the same crest embroidered on the pillows she'd seen on the pink haired boy's shoulder only it was white against the face of its surface while the boy's was red. A desk in the corner, a single window in front of it with curtains that had been hastily pulled in. A carpet so blue it was almost dark was beneath her and its twin at the foot of the bed. But still, her eyes would shift to the mirror. How she could distinctly make out Wendy's blue head and Carla's white body but hers… it was as if she wasn't there.

"W-where are we?"

"Right now we're in Gray's manor. It's huge! I think I've been here so much I could count it just on my right hand," the blue haired girl laughed. "We came after you, Lucy."

"After Plue told us you were taken we ran out to look for you," Carla added.

"We were really worried. By the time we saw the carriage you both were in, Natsu and Happy took off and Natsu—I think he disrupted something with Gray's ice magic—either way the carriage stopped and it wasn't part of the plan. Not that we really had any we just wanted you back. What definitely was not part of the plan was you falling out and almost freezing to death… we're really sorry about that, but we didn't think that would have happened so quickly," Wendy's voice was drifting and the guilt was starting to leak through the cracks.

"The blizzard was even too much for us to handle. We couldn't find you no matter how many times we shouted your name and called out for you. Carla and Happy couldn't even see anything before they were knocked down by the wind, too. But Natsu found you and then we came—WAIT DID YOU JUST SPEAK?"

Before she could blink any reaction, the lone wooden door barricaded down with the pink haired boy and his blue partner tumbling in, nearly knocking down the chandelier with their entrance. "What happened?" he asked breathlessly. Their eyes darted directly to Lucy and their shoulders sunk in relief. "You're oka—" the black haired boy from the carriage pushed his foot against Natsu's head and grated it on the fallen door. "I didn't say you could wreck my house."

Natsu was back on his feet with a swift jump, making Gray lose his balance and grab for the door's frame. While his arms rose above his head with the door, a mischievous grin stretched across his face, it took only about half a second for everyone to realize what was just about to happen.

And those next milliseconds skipped above them in slow-motion: The door high behind Natsu's head. The perfect arch for a perfect land. Lucy's lips breaking apart, her warning splitting the cold air between them—Gray's spiked ends glinting sweat off as he turned around. Simultaneously, the door falling down, Natsu's head spinning towards the girl. Time lapses back—the door is rushing towards him, Gray makes an effort to jump out—

But his reflexes were half that second too late.

And because Natsu's eyes were still frozen on her face, Gray made the feeble attempt to kick the door back at him, pushing the boy onto the ice floor face first. For a moment, just that single moment, it was still.

For those few seconds that passed—one: Happy let out a breath.

Two—Carla closed her eyes.

Three—Wendy's eyes shifted between both boys.

Four—blushed colored strands fell over Natsu's eyes.

Five—Gray's leg hit the ground.

And finally six—Lucy began to laugh.

It was awkward at first, fits of gasping air, her face flushed pink on the tips of her cheek. Then, just like the transition of a melody, it was free and unbound. Her sun kissed color hair was falling back with her head. Lines were forming against the peach of her skin. Her eyes were squinted closed and the single tear that trailed lazily midway down her cheek barely escaped before the room was bursting with the sound.

Happy, Carla, Wendy, Natsu, Gray and Lucy, too.

For years it had been just the first four. For months the fifth had disappeared. And for a day and six seconds, it had been just them.

Even for just those few seconds before, the room was still and as silent as it could be.

For just that small moment, they shared an instant of ignorant bliss.

And for once, it was nothing but that.

Moments like those don't last more than a mere ten seconds before the banging of reality comes knocking on your door. But that knocking is more of an insisting demand beating against hardwood, silencing out any "moment" of ignorant bliss you may have had a just a few seconds short.

Gray and Natsu were on their feet by the second bang, readying their positions for whatever was trying to rampage through the main entrance.

It wasn't until the fourth knock the door disintegrated into splinters and shattered pieces of wood.

A heavy breeze pushed into the manor, reminding everyone the warmth was only temporary. Outside, amidst the dark snowy background, was a thick and tall silhouette, only its eyes visible to those close enough to see. The wind pushed in another begging breeze, a single flake passed by those eyes, it melted against the fire in them.

The shadow took one step inside.

And both their voices echoed against the wind.

"Erza."


End file.
